


==> Be Tavros

by Unda



Series: It's the end of the world as we know it [22]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Implied Kidnapping, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-11 01:38:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13514049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unda/pseuds/Unda
Summary: Comprises the free will section ==> Be Tavros in chapter 34 of MC Escher





	==> Be Tavros

==> Be Tavros

Oh… oh do you have to be? 

You had figured when Karkat started talking about groups and leaders that it meant everyone in the room was going to be in his group for some secret mission and you had no real idea why he’d picked you, but you were pleased nonetheless. But the more he talked the clearer it was that you were meant to be a leader, or that he meant for you to be one. You could understand everyone else in the room being picked but not you.

Of course Vriska says as much, but Karkat isn’t having it and he leaves before you can ask him if he’s really, really sure and he didn’t maybe mix you up with your brother perhaps. Not that anyone has ever done that. Because of the age and the wings and all. You… aren’t jealous of the wings or anything. 

You look at your list of teammates and feel your heart sink a little. 

First of all Aradia is on your team which is pretty good actually. Aradia is nice, she’s pretty wild but she’s never been mean to you and you play some of the same games. Then you have Nepeta and Equius which, again, Nepeta has never been mean to you either. She’s great! Equius can be but you think he’s sometimes a bit of a jerk to a lot of people and Nepeta has assured you before it’s often accidental. You’re pretty sure she’s right on that front, he’s intimidating but he doesn’t seem bad at all. And then you have Hal. You aren’t sure if you’ve ever spoken to Hal, maybe in a group at the same time but never one on one on account of him being a scary spritely robo double of an already intimidating guy. 

Maybe Nepeta is there to ensure that Equius behaves and you know that Karkat likes Hal so maybe he thinks you will too? Maybe Karkat is being nice and giving you a good team? Maybe he doesn’t think you could handle a more rowdy team. He’s probably right.

You chew your lip a little and return to the canteen. A lot of people are already gone and you can see some groups still getting together. Damara walks off with Dirk and Roxy leaving Aradia behind. 

“Um, hey Aradia, you’re on my team.” you say, holding out the paper to show her. 

“Ooh! Let’s see, oh that’s a nice team!” she says and shoves the last of a waffle in her mouth and licks syrup off of her fingers. You look around and see Nepeta off talking to Equius over on the other side of the room. Aradia bounces out of her seat and links her arm with yours, pulling you over to the pair of them. 

“Nep, look! We’re all on the same team, Karkat made Tavros our leader!” Aradia says, showing her the paper.

“Oh that’s going to be fun, I was worried I’d end up on a team of people I don’t know so well or… you know… with the boys.” Nepeta snorts and you know she means her brothers. You’re not entirely sure how anyone can stay sane in such close quarters with those four guys there’s so much… shouting. You’ve had to live in the same building with them for a while now and you deliberately chose rooms away from the four of them but even still, you can hear how loud and chaotic they are.

It’s not that you don’t like them! They’re all great! Karkat’s a great leader and you really want to make him proud with this leadership task that he’s given you but no one can deny that the four Vantas/Captor guys are loud. 

“I approve of Karkat putting us on the same team, I would worry about you otherwise.” Equius nods. Nepeta has never seemed like someone who needs worrying about and you’ve seen her fight the imps, she’s fine. But it’s not your business.

“OMG! Holy shit!” Nepeta exclaims, grabbing the paper out of Aradia’s hands and staring at it.

“Nepeta, language.” Equius chides her. 

“Shh, look! Our last team member is Hal!” Nepeta exclaims, holding up the paper. 

“Oh.” Equius says flatly. 

“Is that a problem?” you ask uneasily. 

“Yes.” Equius answers. 

“No! Not at all!” Nepeta counters. Oh, good. 

“Didn’t you know? Hal is his soulmate.” Aradia explains. Oh, you didn’t know that. 

“I am not. It’s a foolish concept that humans have and if I could get this thing removed I would. He’s merely a computer program that the game gave a body to.” Equius says, gesturing to the mark on his arm of a video game style heart. You know full well that soulmarks can’t be removed, even if you try to ink over them with regular tattoo ink it doesn’t work for more than a day or two. Either way it’s a really harsh thing for him to say. Maybe he doesn’t mean it? Oh boy, perhaps Karkat wasn’t giving you a deliberately easy team after all. 

“I’ll, uh, go ask him if he’s okay with joining the team.” you say, backing off. If he’s not you’re going to have to message Karkat to ask for a new team member. As you leave you can hear Nepeta scolding Equius to be nice. 

Hal is across the room at a table with the Psiionic. His wings are folded against his back neatly and his long sprite tail is loosely wrapped around the pillar of the stool that he’s sat on. 

“You’re right the batteries are the best call but I’m sure we can make savings by decommissioning some areas of the ship so that you don’t have to helm so often.” Hal says thoughtfully. 

“I could cut heating to a few floors for a start, it’s not even real space out there so we’re not losing so much.” The Psiionic nods in agreement. 

“Um.” you say uncertainly. Both of them turn to look at you. 

“I’ve, uh… you’re on my team, Hal.” you tell him. 

His red eyebrows rise up over his shades and he turns around in the air and leans with one hand on the chair as he faces you. He seems to do that, perch like a bird. Part of you wonders if you could control him with your own psionics but you’d never test it, that’d be awful. 

“Oh, I didn’t know. I knew Karkat was including some adults to round out the numbers but I didn’t know he’d put me on as well.” Hal says. 

“Who else is on your team?” The Psiionic asks, turning around fully in his seat. 

“Aradia, Nepeta…” you trail off a little. 

“I think you’ve got a pretty easy break here.” The Psiionic laughs softly. 

“It should be five per team though, who’s your fifth?” Hal asks. 

“Uh, Equius.” you admit. 

The ruff of feathers around his neck fluffs up and he ducks his head down into it a little, that’s nervous self-soothing bird behaviour. Hal twists to look at The Psiionic, his tail tightening around the chair. 

“Can I catch up with you later?” he asks. 

“Sure, I have a lot of wiring to undo and things to burn.” the adult says, his tone indicating that he has a list of the Empress’ things that he intends to set fire to. Hal snorts and unwinds his tail from the chair. 

“Have fun with that.” Hal laughs and flaps his wings to lift him into the air. He floats/soars along above you as you walk back to the table you came from. 

“So have you decided what you’re doing?” Hal questions him, looking down from above. 

“I figured I’d ask everyone what they wanted to do.” you tell him. 

“Hm, democratic. It’s interesting how everyone’s gone with choosing what to do.” Hal muses. Something tells you that Vriska did not ask everyone else on her team what they wanted to do. 

When you get back to the group Hal lands on the table and sits on it like a normal person despite having a long tail instead of legs. 

“Hi.” Hal says smoothly. 

“Hi.” Equius says through gritted teeth and you suspect that Nepeta had to talk him into behaving nicely. 

“So, what should we do?” Aradia asks, looking at you. Oh god, leadership.

“Well, what would everyone else like? We could… compare ideas?” you suggest. What you really want is to come up with something that everyone is happy doing, it’d be bad if you just declared what you were doing without asking people if they were ok with it. You want everyone to be excited for whatever you all do today.

“I think we should go to your planet, Tavros. You said it was like a treasure hunt.” Aradia suggests, and that does sound nice. An adventure with old friends and possible new ones, it could be good! 

“Ooh, fun!” Nepeta chirps excitedly. 

“Is that the most valuable use of our time?” Equius asks.

“I actually have a different suggestion.” Hal says. 

“What’s that?” you ask him. 

“When we caught Jack Noir he wanted the ring of the black queen. That ring gives any carapacian who wears it the powers of everything we prototyped, which considering as that includes Bro and a dog that can teleport among a huge number of other things would be super bad. I already spent more time than I care to admit poking through the fish bitch’s remains-” Hal starts to say. 

“Please don’t use such lewd language.” Equius reprimands him. Hal squints at him for a second but keeps talking. 

“My point is she didn’t have them and no matter how much I question the royalty, Jack Noir, or his friends none of them know or will tell me where the f- where the rings might be. We need to let them all go for the game to progress but it’s too dangerous to do that unless we have the rings so…” Hal trails off significantly. 

“That sounds like a more specific treasure hunt. I guess if it wasn’t on the ship it’d be pretty obvious on Skaia, huh?” Aradia guesses. 

“I think we’d notice, yeah.” Hal nods. 

“It seems like an… adequate use of our time.” Equius agrees and Hal perks up like an excited dog being told he’s a good boy, it’s kind of sweet. 

“I’m in, what do you say Tavros? You’re the leader after all.” Nepeta checks with you. 

“It sounds important to me. Has her room been checked? If she didn’t want them to have it then it’d make sense for her to keep it there.” you suggest. 

“I figured her treasure room would be a better bet but I’ve spent all of last night and a lot of the night before sifting through there and though I’ve found lots of bling no royal rings. I hadn’t moved onto her quarters yet because I’ve still not checked it all, but at this point her rooms may be the better options.” Hal replies. 

“Then…” you pause, they’re all looking at you like you’re a real leader, “then lead the way!” 

Hal takes to the air again and flutters through corridors until he comes to an elevator. He tucks his wings in close to himself as he floats in the corner, the rest of you all get in and Hal leans forward over your head and presses his palm to the plate with all of the floor buttons on it and then after a moment or two he jabs a hot pink button. 

The doors close and the elevator rises. 

“Now, there might be traps.” Aradia tells you.

“I’ll keep an eye out.” you agree. 

“Really? I mean I had to hack this thing to get it to even go to her floor, would traps really be needed?” Hal asks. 

“Highbloods raised on Alternia are often exceptionally paranoid and territorial of their space. Darkleer certainly was and I recall Vriska saying that Mindfang could be the same way too. Back on Alternia both Vriska and I had extensive security for our hives. The rightful leader of our species would have more grounds to protect her things than anyone.” Equius informs you. 

Sometimes you forget he didn’t hatch on Earth. It feels weird sometimes not understanding your own people as much as you should, you hope Equius doesn’t feel like you’re not a real troll because of stuff like this.

“Well, I ain’t about to tell people not to be cautious.” Hal shrugs. 

The door pings open and you all get out, Nepeta and Equius are last and you can hear Nepeta’s hissed accusation of ‘rightful leader?’ and Equius’ fumbling attempts to backpedal. 

The elevator kicked you out into a room that’s reasonably small, there is bench seating around the walls of most of the room and there is a desk by a big golden door. The chair at the desk is pushed back and tipped over. 

“It’s like a reception room, a waiting area.” you say, walking further in. The ceiling is awfully high here, not that it’s exactly low in the rest of the ship. Aradia walks over to the desk and looks it over. It looks like a reception desk to you.

“There’s blood on this, violet blood.” Aradia tells you. 

“Well, we knew the crew were dead. It makes sense that there’d be blood somewhere and there’s no body.” you’ve all wondered where the bodies are, you’re sure. But no one has said and if someone has found out they’ve not told you. You kind of prefer it that way in all honesty. 

“Well it doesn’t seem like there’s anyone here to stop us walking in so…” Nepeta says and presses the button on the wall by the door. 

“Nepeta, be careful!” Equius warns but the door slides open and nothing goes wrong. 

The room inside is messier than you had thought it would be, there’s just piles of stuff around on the floor. Plaques, trophies, statues and almost all in glittering gold. There are heaps of jewelry, gold, gems, pearls, bangles, necklaces and crowns alike. They’re all just dumped around the place or hanging off of things. There’s a trident sticking out of a big armchair. 

“We’re going to be here a while.” Hal groans and floats over to the closest pile of jewelry and starts looking. 

“You haven’t even told us what these rings look like.” Equius remarks, kneeling down at the same pile and tossing a crown across the floor. 

“They’re small and gold and they’ve got white orbs on them, as many of them as players in this session which makes them all kinds of impractical for actually wearing. Or so I imagine, who knows it might be hella comfy it’s not like I- oh, sorry.” Hal says and you turn to see him with his hands pulled back almost to his chest and Equius inspecting his own hands which still don’t, oh, they don’t have a ring on. They must have not confirmed anything yet. 

You don’t really want to get caught up in that so you start exploring. Aradia is pulling cushions off of the furniture which makes sense, when you used to lose things in your house that’d be where they often turned up. You tilt your head to get your horns through the next door and find that it’s a nutrition block, a really fancy one too. It’s littered with all kinds of gadgets of both Earth and Alternian design, the place is spotless. It looks like a cooking show set. 

The fridge door comes open smoothly with a tug and you can see that it’s still fully stocked with food and plenty of dishes that look like they were made here. The Empress must have actually liked to cook, how strange. Nepeta opens a cupboard behind you and you can see that it’s filled with Betty Crocker brand frosting as well as other things like sprinkles, edible glitter, gold leaf. 

“Weird.” Nepeta notes. She starts pulling open drawers but there’s only cooking tools in here, no rings. The freezer produces nothing helpful either and you only checked that because it seemed like a ‘last place you’d think to look’ sort of place. 

“Oh this door is locked.” Nepeta tells you as she jabs the button. 

“Could mean the rings are locked up in there.” you say excitedly, the mystery is starting to thicken. Nepeta slams her shoulder into the door but nothing happens. 

“Hey! Eq, can you open this door for me purrlease?” Nepeta calls. Through the open kitchen door you see Equius stand up in a shower of small trinkets. 

“I can hack it for you.” Hal offers but Equius ignores him and walks to Nepeta’s side. Hal follows silently behind and you see his eyes go wide as Equius punches the door in with one super strong punch. 

“Thank you!” Nepeta trills delightedly and bounces into the room. Equius gingerly picks up the ruined door and rests it against the wall before following after his moirail. Curiously, you watch Hal watch Equius, Hal looks so sad. Wordlessly he flaps his wings and heads back to the pile of golden trinkets he was looking through before. You follow him. Aradia has seemingly moved onto somewhere else. 

“Hey, uh, Hal. We’ve not really talked much before this.” you say nervously. 

“Guess not.” Hal shrugs and pulls a necklace free. 

“You really think that Equius is your soulmate?” you ask. Hal looks up at you, clearly displeased. He pulls his wings in tight and rests a hand on his elbow then pulls his hand up, fanning his feathers out so that you can see the soulmark underneath. You hadn’t realised that he was so heavily feathered, it’s hard to tell on his sprite body but that’s super cool. 

But as the feathers fan past as his hand moves you can see the soulmark beneath. It’s a horse. 

“Well, I mean, who doesn’t like horses? Horses are great.” you say, trying to reassure him. 

“Couldn’t agree more. Only how many people with soulmarks that aren’t claimed by someone else do you know that are also into horses?” Hal asks and tosses several bracelets aside. 

That would be precisely 0 people. Just Equius. 

“Oh.” you mumble. Hal’s wings droop. 

“It is what it is. We just need to find these rings, that’s a problem I can work with.” Hal says instead. 

“Yeah.” you agree. You figure you should back off and leave him alone but he’s still sad and you should fix that if you’re a leader, right? Karkat would fix it. 

“If it makes you feel better he’s kind of a jerk sometimes even if he’s not trying to be and you seem nice so he’s probably missing out.” you blurt out, fumbling through the whole thing. That was reassuring, right?

Hal turns that Strider pokerface on you but you do what you used to do with Dave when you were both younger and just stare him down. 

“That was pretty weaksauce, Tavros. But I guess I appreciate the thought behind that, thanks.” Hal mutters, his wings still drooping low on the ground. 

Backing off is probably best, maybe you should see about the room Nepeta found and Equius ‘opened’ for her. 

Walking inside the place smells stale, like no one has breathed the air for a while. Instead of the hot pinks, blacks and golds of the rest of the place, this room is a soft pale blue and has an actual carpet on the floor. There’s a vanity in carved white wood though the mirror is metal, there are books lined up on a table. Earth books. There’s a bed with human bedding on it, not the sopor infused kind that you have. Across the room Nepeta is standing by an open wardrobe going through the clothes, they look old fashioned. 

“These aren’t her size.” Nepeta says, she’s right. There’s no way these clothes or this bed were ever used by the Empress, they’re all too small for her. 

“They’re clawfully old fashioned too, or more… retro. Seventies, maybe? Porrim or Kanaya would know.” she says, holding a blouse up. 

There’s a little bathroom but everything is metal and bolted to the walls, like in a prison. It’s really weird. 

“Do you see that?” Equius asks and you stick your head out of the bathroom to see him touching the wall above the bed. 

“See what?” you ask. 

“There’s something written on the wall. There’s paint over it but…” Equius trails off. Nepeta butts in the way to look, getting right up close to the wall. 

“It’s not English, though. It’s something else, Latin maybe? I don’t know Latin. I’m going to get Aradia, she might.” Nepeta says and quickly walks out of the room. 

You take her place and feel the wall with your hand, you can make out lines and lines of the same thing over and over but you struggle to even pick out more than a few letters with your eyes. 

“How did you manage to see this?” you ask Equius in wonder. 

“The paint seemed different is all.” the taller troll shrugs.

“Back!” Nepeta announces, followed by Aradia and Hal. You and Equius back off to let Aradia get a good look. 

“Uh, yeah this is Latin alright. My Latin is not very good at all. Illigiti- something illegitimate?” Aradia muses. 

“I know Latin, let me see.” Hal says and flies over, one clawed hand landing on Aradia’s shoulder. He leans in to read and then elbows Aradia out of the way to feel the whole wall. His feathers are puffing up and he suddenly rips the mattress back. Resting on the slats are several unscrewed screws, as Hal holds one up you can tell that the end has been worn down. That must have been used to carve the words into the wall!

“What does it say?” you ask. 

“Illegitimi non carborundum. It’s not real Latin, it’s a quote from a book. It translates to ‘don’t let the bastards grind you down’.” Hal says grimly, he drops the mattress again. 

“There’s no need for-” Equius cuts himself off with a shake of his head.

“What’s the book about?” Nepeta asks instead, it’s a smart question. 

“It’s about a woman,” Hal answers as he looks around the room slowly, “she’s been enslaved and forced to do what she’s been told through torture, brainwashing and fear of being murdered. I don’t think I need to explain why this woman related to her. This was a prison.” Hal says harshly, he glares at every object in the room as if it’s personally offended him. 

“This stuff is all human, could she possibly have had a human on board?” Nepeta asks. 

“She did, no idea how but she did.” Hal says and peers in the bathroom. 

“The bathroom is pretty prisonlike.” you agree. 

“She can’t still be on the ship, right? I mean this stuff all seems really old.” Aradia says, sitting down on the bed and patting a cloud of dust out of the bedding. 

“I think you’re right, all the soap in the bathroom has gone all dessicated. Whoever this woman was she’s not lived in here for a long time.” Hal agrees. 

You turn and look from your position near the wardrobe to the doorway. 

“There’s no button to open the door from the inside.” you say. 

You walk over and pick up the door that Equius busted open and turn it over so you’re looking at the inside. The outside of the door is polished gleaming gold, the only fault on it being the mark of your friend’s giant fist. But the inside is steel, you can see in places it was polished once, there are mirrorlike patches near the edges where the overlap of the frame used to cover it but the rest is covered in little dents, scratches and gouges. 

“Whoever was on this side of the door didn’t want to be in here.” you say slowly. A chill runs up your back, nothing good happened here. 

“The ring isn’t in here, we should go.” Hal says, giving you all an excuse to leave. The place is beyond creepy. 

You all search as a team, looking through her entertainment room, her bathroom, her portrait gallery full of portraits of herself. Her bedroom of course has a huge golden luxurious pool of sopor sunk into the floor as well as something that, being an Earth-raised troll, you want to call a bed. However given the fascinating shade of blue that Equius goes and the amount of, uh, whips and other paraphernalia you guess she did not use that for sleeping. She has an entire room for a wardrobe and a swimming pool that is probably four times the size of the base of your old house not to mention incredibly deep. The floor or two below this one must just be blocked off in those areas. 

Finally though, you come to her office. 

Her office is less glittery than the other rooms. There are blueprints on the walls for drone designs, information about Alternia, a most wanted list. Somewhat amusingly a really large number of the people on that list are currently on the ship, the rest are political rivals or rebels from back on Alternia. You’ve got to respect them for going against her when the costs were so dear. Darkleer and Signless are scratched out on the list and you see Equius looking at it with a tight expression. 

“The life players will work out how to bring people back soon, we can bring him back.” Nepeta says softly to him and you avert your eyes. 

“No one touch anything.” Hal says suddenly as he squints at the screens around the room. Finally he pounces on one on the desk and then sighs in relief. 

“This one would have set off a trap.” he says, breathing a sigh of relief. 

“Great!” Aradia says brightly. 

“Now I just-” Hal begins but Aradia hops into the oversized desk chair. 

“Aradia, no!” Hal yells and throws himself at her. 

The sound of gunfire fills the room and you all duck. Aradia’s scream fills your ears and when the shooting stops you stare at the back wall which is absolutely drenched in red blood. 

There’s a scream but it’s not Aradia and she quickly squirms out from behind the desk, covered in blood but seemingly fine. It’s not her that’s- that’s not her blood or her scream it’s Hal’s. You scurry over on your hands and knees. The sprite is thrashing on the ground in agony, spraying red everywhere. One wing is nearly completely shorn off by gunfire and as he claws at it you upgrade that to ‘hanging on by a thread’. 

“Hal, calm down, you’re going to break your other wing!” you tell him. 

“We gotta get out of here.” Aradia shouts over Hal’s wail of pain and she floats him off of the ground and the four of you crawl out of the room. As she lifts him from the ground the largest part of his wing just drops off with a wet thump that churns your stomach. You all quickly crawl out before the gun starts aiming at you. When you set Hal down on the floor on the other side he’s still screaming. 

“There’s so much blood, is he going to bleed out? He’s a sprite how can he be this hurt?” Nepeta asks in a panic. 

“I don’t know, maybe it’s different when you sprite a living thing instead of someone dead or something inanimate but we have to fix it!” Aradia argues.

“I can bandage it, Hal. You just need to stay still.” you tell him. His long sprite tail thrashes and he flings a table into the pool. 

“Equius, can you hold him down?” you ask. 

Equius nods and climbs over so that he’s on the other side of Hal’s torso to you. He kneels up and presses his hands down on Hal’s shoulders. Hal makes a furious and pained bird sound and claws at his hands and arms but Equius won’t let up. 

Equius makes a strained noise and you would have guessed it was from the claw marks Hal is leaving in his skin but when Hal goes momentarily still too you just catch it as red and blue wind around Hal’s finger. Hal’s pain-blinded and panicked response to this is to try to punch Equius in the face. 

And there is where you need to draw the line. 

Hal is a person, yes, but he’s also part animal. He’s part terrified and mortally wounded bird and he can’t be left to injure himself further or anyone else. You reach out to the part in your brain that has helped you rescue cats in trees and make friends with dogs. You find the bird in his head and just- just make it stop. 

Hal’s face goes slack and his arms drop down limp. With Hal still you can get a good look at his wing. There’s not normal muscle in there and his blood isn’t so much blood as it is… well the closest you could think of is ink. There’s no bullets lodged in his wing so you pull out your first aid kit that Dirk insisted you all have and grab some sterile gauze. Aradia starts quickly threading a needle for you because she knows what to do in an emergency. 

Hal’s mind has more will than a normal animal and you can feel him trying to fight through. You try to- to be more reassuring. To be the leader you were supposed to be but failing that you try to imagine what Karkat or Vriska would do in this situation. Vriska would just keep going but Karkat would be kind, you don’t want Hal to be scared. You were charged with leadership and this is your responsibility so you have to calm him down. 

“I, uh, I know this must hurt a lot but the bleeding isn’t stopping and you were making it worse so I’m going to sew up your wing to try to stop it. I’ve- you’re part crow is all and I can control animals and I’m just doing it to keep you still and calm. I’ll let you go right after, it’s ok.” you say in what you really hope is a reassuring way. 

“This will numb it. You know what’s in this Hal, you and Dirk pack the good shit, huh?” Aradia says with fake cheer, she’s good. She sinks a needle into Hal’s wing stump in a few places, injecting as she goes. You really hope it’s enough.

You dab at the ruined wing, that bleeding is not slowing at all. You need to get started. Nepeta tilts his face so he’s looking at her and Equius, not you and Aradia. She talks quickly and brightly about one of the movies you all saw recently. 

Aradia pinches the red sprite skin for you and you just start sewing, it’s better if you don’t think about it too hard. 

“You don’t need to hold him still now Equius, I have him.” you tell him as Aradia assists you in closing more of the wound. 

“Your… your concentration might lapse and it would be inexcusable for him to injure himself more.” Equius answers. 

You don’t tell him that Hal’s mind has mostly stopped thrashing to get out of your grasp. You can feel that he’s in pain but it also feels a little fuzzy as well, thankfully the painkillers have worked a little. Now that he’s not fighting your control as well it’s really not that hard. But his reasons are probably not that. 

The wing is nearly stitched shut, enough that Aradia leans back to the med kit balanced on Hal’s chest and starts pulling out another bottle of antiseptic as well as gauze, medical tape and wound dressing pads. You tie the knot off and Aradia douses the whole thing in antiseptic. You let it dry for a second and then press the dressing to it. Winding the gauze around it is a really tricky puzzle as wing stumps don’t exactly lend themselves to an easy wrap around but with time and a fair bit of tape use you’re able to finish it. 

“I’m gonna let you go now so just… try to stay calm.” you tell him and back off a little, taking the first aid kit with you. Aradia backs off as well but Equius stays put. 

You feel the shape of Hal’s mind, imagine it like it was in your hands. You can see it like a red marble and then you carefully open you hand and let go. Hal jerks and his tail thrashes, his hands coming up to Equius’s arms and gripping tight. 

“Let me go, let me go, let me go!” Hal gasps, shoving at him. 

Equius lifts his hands off and Hal shoots back away from all of you. He bumps up into the wall and his long sprite tail curls around him, making him look more like a pissed off snake than a person. 

“How did- how did you do that?” Hal asks, his voice shaking. His hands paw at his bandaged wound with desperation. 

“Careful, you’ll rip your stitches.” Aradia warns him. 

“It’s just my psionics. Vriska can control most trolls, I can do animals and you’re sort of, um, part animal.” you point out again, gesturing to his wings. Er, wing. 

“You numbed it I can’t- I can’t feel it. Most of my arm is numb too. I’ve never- god, I’ve never felt pain like that.” Hal says and you watch as his other wing opens and shuts and his now half amputated wing tries to mimic it as best as it can. He stares at his wing, his fingers partway through combing through the feathers and then looks back at you. 

“I completely lost it, I’m so- god I fucked up. Are you all okay? I was supposed to be protecting you.” Hal says, uncoiling and moving closer to you and favouring his uninjured side as he moves. 

“You did, I would have died otherwise. I mean it probably wouldn’t have been a permanent thing, I don’t think stupid deaths are Just but I’d rather not find out. But I don’t know if you’re going to grow that back, I should be the one apologising.” Aradia says, pointing at Hal’s wing. 

“Yeah, well, I shouldn’t have let you in there until I’d turned everything off. And I shouldn’t have lost it so badly in pain that you all had to pull my fool ass out and have to be mind controlled to get fixed.” Hal says miserably. 

“I am sure losing a limb is very painful, it is fine.” Equius says sincerely, placing a large hand on Hal’s shoulder. It’s pretty obvious how much he perks up at his now confirmed soulmate’s words. 

“Besides, all of your memories of pain are from Dirk, yes? He still has all of his limbs so you would have no reference.” he continues. 

“I mean, I guess but…” Hal shrugs, seemingly not convinced by his own point. 

“Plus you are just a computer program, it makes sense that you would make errors in judging scales of pain.” Equius adds and Hal’s expression twists into rage and he shakes Equius’ hand off. 

“Shut your face before I fucking drown you.” he snaps and floats back into the Empress’s room. 

“You were so close.” Nepeta groans, her face in her hands. 

“What?” Equius protests. 

“Hopeless.” she sighs. 

Aradia leaps up and rushes after Hal but stops at the doorway, evidently she doesn’t want to get shot at again. There’s a thunk as the gun that was in the wall is thrown on the floor and Hal floats back to the desk to deactivate any more traps. Thankfully the shorn of hunk of wing that the bullets took off of him has melted into a puddle of red inklike blood on the floor. 

“There’s got to be…” Hal mutters under his breath. 

“You think it’s in here because of all of the traps?” you ask, the idea makes sense to you but maybe you don’t know what you’re talking about. 

“Nobody puts this many traps on-” Hal pauses and frowns, balancing on the desk with his good arm. 

“Psychopaths put out traps for no reason or just for kicks and outrageously evil or not, the Empress never seemed out of touch with reality to me. If she trapped this place it was for a reason and maybe it’s for these plans for Alternia but since there’s not been anyone alive there for a good chunk of time, there’s no reason to leave that on. So there’s something here she didn’t want anyone else to have.” Hal reasons. 

He rummages through her desk, tossing out things that aren’t what he’s looking for. You’re just about to suggest splitting up again so you can search productively elsewhere rather than just watch when he makes an excited noise. 

“Aw, yes. Check it.” Hal grins, holding up two rings with an absurd number of white beads on them. 

“You found them!” you cheer. Hal floats out to you and drops the rings in your hand, he holds onto the doorframe and you can see his eyes squeeze shut behind his shades. 

“Is… is the anesthesia wearing off? That was really fast.” you ask worriedly. 

“A little, I guess my fast processing speed works here too.” Hal grimaces. 

“Maybe we should go, get somewhere that’s more safe and less creepy.” you suggest. 

“Yeah, I’ve been in tombs and dug up plenty of bones but that room is really wrong.” Aradia agrees. 

The three of you meet up with Nepeta and Equius. She looks pretty mad and it’s pretty easy to guess that it’s because Equius was being a little, well, mean back there even if he didn’t exactly mean it like that. Or you don’t think he was trying to be mean. After that you all head back to the elevator and wind up back in the cafeteria that you started out in. 

Hal slumps down over a table, his wing spreading out over it and off onto the seat. The rest of you sit down on the chairs around the table and you set the two rings on the tabletop. 

“So what do we do with the rings now? I know we can’t let anyone else get them but what do we do?” Nepeta asks. 

“We could just keep them but then there’s a risk that we could get jumped and killed for them.” Aradia says thoughtfully. 

“The ship is secure.” Equius points out. 

“Can’t we just destroy them?” you ask, turning one over in your hand. Surely a hammer or something could break them. 

“Good luck, they’re almost indestructible.” Hal groans, still face down. 

“Almost is all I need!” Aradia declares, snatching one up with her psionics. It glows red with her effort and you watch Aradia’s face contort in exertion before she finally gasps and drops it. 

“What the hell?” she pants. 

“Allow me.” Equius says and takes the ring. He holds it between his fingers and pulls but it doesn’t snap or budge. He holds it in his palm and clenches his fist tight, his muscles bulging in exertion and a heavy sweat breaking out on his skin. When he opens his hand the ring is fine as can be. 

“Told you.” Hal grunts. Redness is seeping through his bandages a little now. 

You turn the other ring around in your hand and try to think. If there’s any chance that this ring could fall into the wrong hands you have to do something about it, it could be almost instant death for everyone. Honestly it was probably sheer luck that the Empress picked the rulers up almost right away by the looks of things, if things had gone another way well, it doesn’t bear thinking about. At the very least she wanted you to win and knew how to take an obstacle this dangerous off of the field for you, in a way you owe her and that thought doesn’t sit well inside of you.

But still, all this fuss for a ring.

Wait!

“We could throw it, I mean both of them, in a volcano, like in Lord of the Rings!” you exclaim. 

“Jade’s planet does have a volcano.” Nepeta muses. 

Hal lifts his head off of the table and seems to consider this.

“Well, just lava wouldn’t do it. You couldn’t just whip it into the lava on Dave’s planet and have that work but all of the space players planets have a way of getting to their denizen, Echidna. Jade’s volcano and the lava in it feeds right down to her lair. I’m not sure Echidna would accept it from us but if you went there and got Jade to throw it in then that might do it. She’s not- augh fuck, she’s not unreasonable and with a session this big this is more about making the playing field even.” Hal says. 

“I’m sure Jade would agree.” Nepeta says quickly. 

“Holy SHIT.” a voice comes from behind you. You turn, ignoring Equius muttering about humans and their bad language, to see Dirk and Roxy rushing towards Hal. It was Dirk who had shouted but when he gets to Hal he falls short of touching his wing stub. 

“What happened?” Dirk asks worriedly. 

“I got shot, a lot. Lost a wing. Turns out I’m not immune from harm like I should be or, as it happens, pain. I experienced real pain for the first time today and I have to say I am NOT a fan.” Hal says with a hiss as Roxy touches the base of his wing. You guess the pain medication has almost totally worn off then. 

“Oh, really? Funny that because Dirk-” Cronus says in a voice that you think is actually a little bit, perhaps, sleazy. 

“Not now, Cronus. Or, in fact, ever! Fuck off!” Dirk snaps at him and turns his attention back to Hal. 

“Does it still hurt, baby?” Roxy asks sweetly, stroking his back. That whole boundless paleness of human behaviour will always seem a little weird to you, you think, but it’s nice that they care. 

“Not as much as before but still pretty bad.” Hal admits and sucks in a breath through his teeth when Dirk’s hand gets too close to a painful part of his wing. 

“This is good work, did you patch yourself up? The angle can’t have been easy.” Dirk notes. 

“It wasn’t me. Tavros and Aradia did all of the work, I owe them big.” Hal says with a shake of his head. 

Your face darkens in embarrassment, someone else could have done a better job, you’re sure. You just tried to stop it getting worse was all. 

“It wasn’t- I mean, thank you, I just hope it’s good enough. You did save Aradia’s life after all.” you say quickly. Hal shrugs and immediately looks like he regrets it. 

“What happened?” Damara asks. 

“I set off a trap, it was dumb. But Hal found the rings, we need to destroy them now in Jade’s volcano if she’ll let us.” Aradia says. 

“Should have been more careful.” Damara states firmly and you feel Aradia wince next to you. 

“Oh, um, Jade says we can totally go to her volcano if we like. I just asked.” Nepeta says quickly. You see Meulin waggle her eyebrows and flash Nepeta a heart sign with her hands. 

“Alright, let’s go th- hey!” Hal yelps as his attempts to get up are thwarted by Dirk and Roxy holding him in place. 

“Are you delirious? You’re not going.” Dirk says firmly. 

“Yeah, Hal you’re too badly hurt. I don’t know how sprite biology works but if it still hurts then you can’t be done healing yet. Someone else should go in your place.” Roxy adds. 

“But…” Hal tries, both of them shake their heads at him. 

“I will go with you, if that is alright Tavros. You are the leader of this team, yes?” Damara asks and you nod. 

“I am, I mean, Karkat made me leader but- yes of course you can come. And don’t worry Hal, you’ve already done so much, all we have to do is throw some rings in a volcano. You should rest, it’ll be simple.” you try to reassure him. 

“There are multiple movies all about how there is no such thing as ‘simply’ destroying rings in a volcano. Don’t make me pull out memes on you, Nitram.” Hal argues. 

“Given the lack of orcs I think they’ll be fine. Besides, Damara can handle it, right?” Dirk asks, looking over at her. 

“Of course. Come on, before the bird changes his mind.” Damara says. 

“Oh! Some of them are back!” A woman’s voice says and you look up to see Dolorosa peering out of the kitchens to look at you. The noise of so many of you back must have attracted her attention, she walks over with a smile. 

“We didn’t expect you to be back so soon.” she says, stopping at your table. 

“Yeah, there were issues.” Dirk says stiffly. 

“Oh, my, you’re hurt. What happened?” Dolorosa asks, looking down at the injured Hal. 

“Shenanigans. I blame the fish bitch and her dangerous and creepy rooms with traps.” Hal grumbles miserably. 

“I think that bedroom might give me nightmares.” Nepeta says with a shiver. It was unsettling to say the very least. 

“What, her bedroom?” Dolorosa asks. 

“Well that was creepy in its own right but no, she has this room for a human in her area and it was clearly a prison of some kind for a human woman but she’d obviously been trying to escape. She wasn’t there, though. We don’t think she was for some time but who knows what happened there.” Aradia explains.

Dolorosa’s eyes are wide, very wide. 

“One moment.” she says softly and quick walks back to the kitchen and right away reappears with Mr Egbert, pulling him by the arm as she walks slightly faster. 

“The children were just saying they found a room in  _ her _ private area of the ship. Can you tell him what you told me?” Dolorosa asks that last part of all of you. 

“It was a prison, basically. Everything was human sized and it was clearly a woman’s room.” Aradia explains. 

Mr Egbert’s skin is the same darker tone that John’s is, not that you’ve been able to pin any of them down to a particular ethnicity yet. You’ve always been bad at that with humans and it’s so very rude to ask. All the same his skin is normally warm and rich but it becomes very quickly ashy and ill looking. 

“The door only opened from the outside and there were scratches all on the inside of the door. And she had at some point carved ‘Illegitimi non carborundum’ over and over into the wall it’s from-” Hal starts to explain.

“The Handmaid’s Tale. I- I bought her that book, I thought it would help her understand. I- you need to show me that room.” Mr Egbert says in a choked voice. 

You all look at each other in confusion. Mr Egbert can’t possibly mean that he bought  _ the Empress _ a book so you have no idea who he might be talking about but he looks really upset. You wish none of you had said anything if it was going to distress him this much. 

“I can take you, since I’ve apparently been vetoed out of my group.” Hal complains. 

“We’re coming with, right Dirk?” Roxy says, standing up. Dirk nods and the two of them pull Hal up gently by the arms, he complains that he can still fly. The three of them go off with the two adults leaving the rest of you behind. You pick up the rings from the table and hold them in your palm. How hard can it be to throw some jewelry into a volcano?

  
  
  
  



End file.
